On Saturday 16 September, a crew of Old Vikings attended the Old Blades Regatta at Eton Dorney to compete against former pupil crews from other schools. Here is a write-up from organiser Rob Robertson (77B):

What is it about the third weekend in September?  The weather is always brilliant!. When we arrived at the iconic lake in Eton there wasn’t even a breath of wind and the long rectangle of water glowed in the sunshine like very long mirror - perfect conditions for a show down of blades and boats!

We’ve struggled a bit this year with numbers of Old Vikings being able to attend, however, we probably put out on the lake one of the finest line-ups we had in recent years.. .an extremely powerful and talented group of rowers.

Tom Boret (20W)
Sydney Burnand (20E)
Sebastian Hjortland- Marks (20S)
Austin Burnand (17E)
James (from Canford)
Neil Srivastava (00B)
Mark McCluggage (01E)
James Halsall (01S)
Cox: Ollie Joiner (Current Year 13)

The racing is a little different from your normal regatta. There are three races, the first being over 750metres, the second 500metres, and the last a 250 metre sprint where you throw every gut busting muscle to move the boat into rocket propulsion through the water!

There were ix6 crews competing, three from Eton, Hampton Lions, Old Canfordians and the mighty Shiplake Old Vikings. There’s the usual gentlemanly “eyeing up” on the landing stage trying to weigh up the competition, but nothing looked onerous or unbeatable... `Hang on a minute, who’s those two in the main Eton boat? That's Ed Coode and Andrew Lindsay, Olympic gold medallists who rowed with Steve Redgrave! Umpire we need to have a chat, handicaps need to be put in place!' After much remonstrating, NO handicap was allowed. Hmmm, no choice but to show them what we are made of!

The first race was a close tussle between Shiplake and Eton, leaving the rest of the pack in their wake. The second race was very similar. On the last race a plan was hatched between ourselves and Canford, we put our four best oarsman together (Shiplake in the stern, Canford in the bows) to smash this Eton crew! This was the final of finals... nothing to lose. All crews were off the start with a massive surge of water that could have emptied the lake!

The main Eton crew and ourselves left the other boats completely behind in the first five strokes leading to a photo finish. Eton winning by a bow ball!!

Okay so we came second in the overall tally of points. But here's the real lesson to take away, Eton with their Olympians in the boat only narrowly won over our amazing “Old Vikings” which demonstrates the excellence in coaching and training the rowers gain at Shiplake.
It left all of us watching from the bank immensely proud of their achievements. WELL DONE!

We plan on a Christmas outing on the Thames either at Marlow or Shiplake, few drinks after (families welcome), I’ll get the first round in! Let us know if you’re interested (oldvikings@shiplake.org.uk).

Lastly... a really BIG thank you to Ollie for last minute coxing (and his dad for the running around), Dave Currie, and Neil Srivastava.

GO SHIPLAKE